Monday, April 18, 2011
The rest of the Summer of Classic Rock
...and we should note, tickets in hand for: The Moody Blues, Peter Gabriel (who I first saw in 1978 - maybe the longest stretch between two performances by the same artist ever for me), and Jethro Tull/Kansas. The latter two in June, the Moodys in a few weeks.
Sir Elton
Hey - we're back!
Anyway, we packed up the jalopy and headed down to the Big City last week, on my birthday eve, to see Elton John at the Wells Fargo. He was in town doing a benefit for the Matthew Shepherd Foundation, and I suspect a good portion of the crowd was there at least to support the cause. That's a good thing...but we were there because Sharon is an unrepetent Elton fan and she had never seen him.
Sorry for the lousy snap - I am barely comforted by the long-distance, concert-lighting performance of my fanchy shmancy Droid 2 camera only by the fact it's better than the camera on my old phone.
Barely a bemused Eltonhead back in the day (meaning, the 70's), I will say few thing struck me about this performance - which was solo, a fact I noted with some dismay when we first got the tickets, but was ultimately okay with once the show got underway.
Foremost, I was left with the realization that this guy was probably (I mean, this is a hard metric to really validate, since it's in part chart positions, part sales and general subjectivity) the single biggest male artist of the 1970's. They call Michael Jackson the "King of Pop"...but as far as radioplay and chart-landing singles, Jacko couldn't wipe the shit off Elton John's shoes. Wikipedia tells that he's had "seven consecutive No. 1 US albums, 56 Top 40 singles, 16 Top 10, four No. 2 hits, and nine No. 1 hits." The guy played two and a half hours, all but four or five of the tunes were hits, and I walked out of there thinking of at least 6 songs I knew that he didn't play. The repetoire is frighteningly vast.
It didn't so much make a fan of me, as it did made me appreciate the breadth of success this guy had in the space of (mostly) just a decade, a level of success I doubt could ever really be matched again.
Secondly, his singing, which was once a marvel in its range and occasional just plain weirdness, has been compressed now to barely an octave and a half, baritone rather than tenor. We will note the man is 64 years old, didn't exactly treat himself very well for a couple of decades, and couldn't approach his former range at this age even if he had. But it lent a somewhat flat character to the entirety of the concert, and muted some of the music's original drama. It mostly worked...not quite entirely.
Thirdly, he is an impressive pianist and sailed off on two or three very extended piano solos, departing off his standard gospel-meets-Brahms style with finesse and vigor. I enjoyed the solos very much, although I suspect much of the crowd got somewhat fidgety during their length.
Fourth - his flamboyance is not entirely gone. He has thrown off much of his theatrics, but he still relishes the performance and the adoration. Obvious...and, okay.
Fifth - he's short, pudgy and appears somewhat bow-legged.
I enjoyed it. Some of the tunes are real gems ("Daniel", "Levon"), owing as much to Bernie Taupin as John himself; some (like "Crocodile Rock") are cheesy trifles the world would scarecely miss if erased from our collective consciousness, and John himself, in between songs, was candid and funny, and beamed genuine gratitude at the legion of fifty-something women who still adore him with all their might. He is also passionate about his causes, the MSF being one.
Glad we went.
Anyway, we packed up the jalopy and headed down to the Big City last week, on my birthday eve, to see Elton John at the Wells Fargo. He was in town doing a benefit for the Matthew Shepherd Foundation, and I suspect a good portion of the crowd was there at least to support the cause. That's a good thing...but we were there because Sharon is an unrepetent Elton fan and she had never seen him.
Sorry for the lousy snap - I am barely comforted by the long-distance, concert-lighting performance of my fanchy shmancy Droid 2 camera only by the fact it's better than the camera on my old phone.
Barely a bemused Eltonhead back in the day (meaning, the 70's), I will say few thing struck me about this performance - which was solo, a fact I noted with some dismay when we first got the tickets, but was ultimately okay with once the show got underway.
Foremost, I was left with the realization that this guy was probably (I mean, this is a hard metric to really validate, since it's in part chart positions, part sales and general subjectivity) the single biggest male artist of the 1970's. They call Michael Jackson the "King of Pop"...but as far as radioplay and chart-landing singles, Jacko couldn't wipe the shit off Elton John's shoes. Wikipedia tells that he's had "seven consecutive No. 1 US albums, 56 Top 40 singles, 16 Top 10, four No. 2 hits, and nine No. 1 hits." The guy played two and a half hours, all but four or five of the tunes were hits, and I walked out of there thinking of at least 6 songs I knew that he didn't play. The repetoire is frighteningly vast.
It didn't so much make a fan of me, as it did made me appreciate the breadth of success this guy had in the space of (mostly) just a decade, a level of success I doubt could ever really be matched again.
Secondly, his singing, which was once a marvel in its range and occasional just plain weirdness, has been compressed now to barely an octave and a half, baritone rather than tenor. We will note the man is 64 years old, didn't exactly treat himself very well for a couple of decades, and couldn't approach his former range at this age even if he had. But it lent a somewhat flat character to the entirety of the concert, and muted some of the music's original drama. It mostly worked...not quite entirely.
Thirdly, he is an impressive pianist and sailed off on two or three very extended piano solos, departing off his standard gospel-meets-Brahms style with finesse and vigor. I enjoyed the solos very much, although I suspect much of the crowd got somewhat fidgety during their length.
Fourth - his flamboyance is not entirely gone. He has thrown off much of his theatrics, but he still relishes the performance and the adoration. Obvious...and, okay.
Fifth - he's short, pudgy and appears somewhat bow-legged.
I enjoyed it. Some of the tunes are real gems ("Daniel", "Levon"), owing as much to Bernie Taupin as John himself; some (like "Crocodile Rock") are cheesy trifles the world would scarecely miss if erased from our collective consciousness, and John himself, in between songs, was candid and funny, and beamed genuine gratitude at the legion of fifty-something women who still adore him with all their might. He is also passionate about his causes, the MSF being one.
Glad we went.
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